COPENHAGEN • Denmark and the United States are among six countries that have reported new coronavirus cases linked to mink farms, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden are the other nations to have discovered Sars-CoV-2 in minks, it added in a statement on Friday.
Denmark has imposed strict measures in the north of the country after warning that a mutation of the virus had jumped from minks to humans and infected 12 people.
Copenhagen has cautioned that the mutation could threaten the effectiveness of any future Covid-19 vaccine and ordered the slaughter of all the estimated 15 million to 17 million minks in the country.
Britain yesterday banned entry to all non-resident foreigners coming from Denmark after the mutation was found in humans.
The British transport department said the prohibition will be reviewed after one week.
Scientists say virus mutations are common and often harmless, and that this one does not cause a more severe illness in humans.
But the Danish health authorities have expressed concern that this strain, known as "Cluster 5", is not inhibited by antibodies to the same degree as the normal virus, which they fear could threaten the efficacy of vaccines that are being developed across the globe.
"Initial observations suggest that the clinical presentation, severity and transmission among those infected are similar to that of other circulating Sars-CoV-2 viruses," the WHO statement said.
"However, this variant... the 'cluster 5' variant, had a combination of mutations, or changes that have not been previously observed.
"The implications of the identified changes in this variant are not yet well understood," the UN agency warned.
It added that preliminary findings indicated this mink-associated variant has "moderately decreased sensitivity to neutralising antibodies".
The WHO has called for further studies to verify the preliminary findings.
"Although the virus is believed to be ancestrally linked to bats, its origin and intermediate host(s) of Sars-CoV-2 have not yet been identified," it noted.
Since June, 214 human cases of Covid-19 have been identified in Denmark with variants associated with farmed minks, including 12 cases with a unique variant that were reported last Thursday.
A total of 300,688 people have died from the coronavirus in Europe, according to a tally compiled by Agence France-Presse on Friday. The region is the second-worst affected by the pandemic in terms of fatalities, after Latin America and the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, Liverpool in England on Friday began the country's first city-wide coronavirus testing programme. All 500,000 residents will be offered repeat tests, even if asymptomatic, under a pilot scheme that could be rolled out nationwide if successful
The surge in virus cases has forced Italy, France, Ireland, Britain and Greece to either impose restrictions or a lockdown to contain the spread of the disease.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG
